Nutraceuticals and Functional Foods: Advancing Metabolic, Reproductive and Immune Health in Animals

Dear Colleagues,

The growing demand for sustainable and ethical animal production practices necessitates exploring innovative nutritional strategies. Therefore, this Special Issue explores the potential of nutraceuticals and functional foods to enhance animal health, focusing on metabolic, reproductive, and immune functions.

Nutraceuticals encompass a diverse range of food-derived bioactive compounds with scientifically proven health benefits. Functional foods, on the other hand, are whole foods or fortified products designed to promote specific health functions beyond basic nutrition. Both nutraceuticals and functional foods offer a promising approach to physiologically improve animal health and well-being without solely relying on conventional veterinary treatments.

This Special Issue invites original research and review articles that explore the versatile applications of nutraceuticals and functional foods in enhancing overall animal health.

We encourage submissions that investigate the impact of these dietary interventions on various aspects of animal physiology, including the following:

• Metabolic health: Studies investigating the role of nutraceuticals and functional foods in regulating different metabolisms (such as blood sugar and improving lipid profiles), as well as boosting overall metabolic efficiency in animals.
• Reproductive health: Research investigating how these dietary components can influence fertility, receptivity, and offspring health as well as development in different animal species.
• Immune health: Articles examining the potential of nutraceuticals and functional foods to modulate the immune response, enhance disease resistance, and promote gut health in animals.

This Special Issue aims to stimulate the further exploration and development of nutraceutical as well as functional food applications for animal health. We believe that this approach holds significant potential to improve animal production practices, fostering a future of enhanced animal health, welfare, and product quality.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Giulio Curone
Dr. Alda Quattrone
Dr. Nour Elhouda Fehri
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.